Monitoring the consumption of materials, such as liquids and food, in commercial environments may be challenging in busy service environments, such as restaurants and hospitals. For example, in a food service environment, the replenishing of beverages and the presentation of bill are predominantly controlled by the efficiency of the waiting staff, either through passive monitoring of their covers, or by active request for service by the consumer. Accordingly, if consumption is not carefully monitored in a commercial environment, the revenue value of each consumer and the revenue associated with consumer throughput may be potentially negatively impacted by the ability to service consumers in a timely manner. This is particularly the case in high throughput establishments such as fast food restaurants or bars.
In health care environments, such as hospitals and long term care facilities, monitoring consumption of liquids, medicines, and food by patients may be very important to favorable outcomes. However, staffing constraints may make this challenging, possibly leading to oversights.
The same numbers are used throughout the disclosure and the figures to reference like components and features. Numbers in the 100 series refer to features originally found in FIG. 1; numbers in the 200 series refer to features originally found in FIG. 2; and so on.